IN GOD WE TRUST

Perhaps they were prompted to the chronicler by an authoritative tradition, in particular literary. This tradition was part of medieval symbolic knowledge, the scholarship possessed by the authors and their readers. It is well known that in old French literature — the heroic songs of the royal cycle, which reflected an earlier period of the struggle of Christians and Muslims (the campaigns of Charlemagne or the events of the Reconquista), a similar image of the Saracens already existed, and it was well known to the crusaders...

Several such fantastic stories can be found already in the chronicles of the First Crusade. Here is one of these stories. June 2, 1098, after a grueling siege, the armies of the crusaders captured Antioch. Emir Yagi-Sian escaped from the fortress, and a few days later the numerous troops of Atabek Mosul Kerboga, who arrived at the request of the son of Yagi-Sian, Shams al-Daula, surrounded the city. The Christian knights, who had recently besieged Antioch, themselves found themselves in the position of the besieged...

In the history of Muslim-Christian contacts, the Crusades were an important stage. It was at this time that Western Europe opened up opportunities for direct communication with the Muslim world. Did a closer acquaintance with the Muslim East engender new Christian attitudes towards Islam, did this acquaintance expand knowledge about Muslims and overcome past stereotypes? It is possible to judge what ideas about Islam were formed at this time only on the basis of chronicles of the Crusades, in...

The division of cultures into eastern and western ones captures not only their territorial location, but also the characteristics of the methods and ways of knowing the world, value orientation, basic worldviews, socioeconomic and political structures. In modern cultural studies, “West” means European and American culture, and “East” means the cultures of the countries of Central, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. For the Middle Ages, this division depends on whether this issue is considered from a Eurocentric or global point of view...

Philosophical and historical studies always have a certain practical orientation. Comprehending the past, we strive to understand the present, to determine the development trends of modern society. In this sense, solving the question of the correlation of Western and Eastern cultures of civilizations, and also Russia's place in this dialogue, acquires special importance and relevance to us. This problem has often been raised before in the work of philosophers and sociologists. Now it...